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Peter Lucas: Baker shows loyalty with losing endorsement

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
02/12/2016 06:34:21 AM EST

Charlie Baker would have been better off if he simply said, "Hey, I owe the guy. He's been good to me."

Had he done so he might have avoided some of the criticism he got for doing what he was going to do anyway -- and this was to help out a friend. Also, he might have taken some of the sting out of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's pathetic showing.

Instead, the governor painted his endorsement in New Hampshire of Christie's failing campaign for president as something out of a politically righteous playbook.

"To make a decision about something like this based on the polls would be to sort of miss the point," Baker said, as Christie hovered at around 4 percent in the New Hampshire polls.

Baker, a moderate Republican, had previously remained aloof from Republican presidential politics, but became concerned when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump came out on top at the Iowa GOP caucuses.

It was then that he decided to endorse Christie the Friday before Tuesday's Granite State primary, and then attended a Christie rally in Bedford with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito Saturday morning.

"My view all along on this was to not get involved, but I've been concerned about the slide of the party," he said, which he meant to mean a slide to the right. It was that slide that buried Christie.

Baker, who had been critical of Trump's remarks about not admitting Muslim refugees to the U.S.

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, was also taken aback with Trump's temperament and lack of a "collaborative nature."

Cruz, he said, failed to demonstrate an ability to compromise in order "to get stuff done."

Both, in Baker's view, were agents of polarization. Christie, on the other hand, was a governor who could find "common ground and had done a "pretty terrific job in working across the aisle" in "a deeply blue state."

Christie, the governor said, showed an ability to work with his Democrat-controlled Legislature, which was good.

Christie is also the man who campaigned for Baker in 2010 when Baker ran against incumbent Gov. Deval Patrick. In 2014 Christie, then head of the Republican Governors Association, was able to get the RGA to contribute $11 million to Baker's successful campaign for governor against Democrat Martha Coakley. Christie also attended Baker's inauguration.

"I really appreciate the fact that he's been somebody who has reached out to me at various points," Baker said.

So Baker owed Christie, and that is why he endorsed him. Only Baker did not say that.

What he said was that he admired Christie's ability to "reach across the aisles" to "get stuff done" in New Jersey, just as Baker has done with his Democrat-dominated Legislature in Massachusetts.

Now, all the talk about "reaching across the aisle" may sound good on the campaign trail. But in reality it is a bunch of nonsense.

Republican governors like Baker and Christie only reach across the aisle to work with the Democrats in their respective legislatures because they have to, not because they want to. They have no Republicans to work with. In the Massachusetts Legislature, the Republicans are in such a minority in both the House and the Senate that they are irrelevant. Ditto for New Jersey.

It is only when a governor or a president has a Legislature controlled by the opposition party that there is talk about reaching across the aisle. Otherwise such talk is irrelevant.

For instance, there was no such talk during the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency. Fellow Democrats had the majority in both branches of Congress, so the president was able to ram Obamacare through without a single Republican vote.

Talk of compromise, cooperation and reaching across the aisle only began when the Republicans took over both branches of Congress. Even then Obama went around the Congress and began governing through questionable executive orders.

Governors like Baker (somewhat) and Christie (definitely) would govern much the same way if they could.

Still, there was something admirable about Baker's endorsement of his friend Chris Christie, even though he fudged the reason. He stood by a friend.

It is easy to endorse a winner. It takes a little something extra to endorse a man you knew was going to lose.

It is also poetic justice that Christie, who savaged Sen. Marco Rubio, ended up savaging himself. Christie sought to be shrewd, but ended up being rude and crude. He finished sixth and has now dropped out of the race.

And Baker endorsed him. Good luck with that, Charlie.

Peter Lucas' political column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@aol.com.

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